Quoting JD Lancaster <jlancaster protonmail com>:
Mostly right. As Eric, the original poster, noted, you can open images of different file types, but recent versions of Gimp are imposing xcf as a native file type when 'saving.' I'm assuming this is about preserving a more complete working version with layers and whatever else might be obscured or lost with other file types.I may be wrong, but I believe that in GIMP you manipulate images you open as xcf files, and you must export to get different file types, such as jpg.
Yes, to save, for example, as a .jpg or .png like Eric wants, this is exactly right.To do this you need to go to: File > Export As...
-- David Benfell <benfell parts-unknown org>
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